Will take place on October 6th in the Melbourne Cricket Ground, will stream live on the Network and will feature Cena, Ronda Rousey, AJ, Angle, and presumably a bunch of other big stars. It's confirmed that Undertaker will wrestle Triple H for the first time since their Hell in a Cell at Wrestlemania 28. All of you guys that thought Taker/HHH at Mania 27 was slow and boring, you're gonna have a field day with this one.

Bumping this because it's kinda funny how much WWE has hyped this match - considering that Triple H's and Undertaker's matches at the Saudi Arabia PPV had basically no build, and considering how HHH and Taker's last match together at 'Mania 28 was billed "the end of an era".

Hell, they had Taker appear on Raw out of nowhere to do a promo-off with Michaels. This the same Undertaker who never showed up during the Cena feud earlier this year?

I will defend Triple H when I feel like it's warranted, but this is clearly a good old case of something being treated as more important that it probably should be just because Haitch is involved. Good to know he's still The Game and hasn't gone soft

I don't watch WWE anymore, but I have heard people talk about some of these segments somewhat positively. Apparently they teased Shawn Michaels coming out of retirement to face Undertaker again, and fans actually chanted for the match? I don't understand these people.

Even if they managed to put together a decent segment or two for a change, this pairing bores me to tears on a fundamental level. Imagine how much money they'd have to give these guys in order for them to have a crappy match on a show that fans don't really give a shit about in Saudi Arabia, and then consider how few resources they dedicate to getting the rest of their roster over.

Hanley! wrote:I don't watch WWE anymore, but I have heard people talk about some of these segments somewhat positively. Apparently they teased Shawn Michaels coming out of retirement to face Undertaker again, and fans actually chanted for the match? I don't understand these people.

Even if they managed to put together a decent segment or two for a change, this pairing bores me to tears on a fundamental level. Imagine how much money they'd have to give these guys in order for them to have a crappy match on a show that fans don't really give a shit about in Saudi Arabia, and then consider how few resources they dedicate to getting the rest of their roster over.

It was a good segment, though I feel like I saw the same segments last time HHH/Taker/HBK were feuding. And in this day and age of Raw, a promo like that ranks really really high. I saw a lot of people afterwards buying into the notion of HBK coming out of retirement against the likes of Styles and yes, even Taker again. I don't get why so many people want another HBK match. Even the 2011 version of Michaels was not on the same level of athleticism as AJ Styles, and nowadays he would be in way worse shape and would not be able to keep up with Styles at all. It would be a good match in terms of crowd investment and story told, but nowhere near a classic in terms of workrate (which I assume is the selling point of that dream match in the first place). Best case scenario, it's as good as Shane McMahon vs Styles without the big bumps. Is that worth an HBK "one more match" after the incredible sendoff he got at Wrestlemania 26? I don't think so. I respect Shawn for staying true to his word and not tarnishing his legacy. If he was going to have one more match, the time to do it has passed.

Yeah, that Undertaker and Triple H wrestled for far too long and had a dull, plodding, overbooked match is probably the least surprising wrestling story of the year so far. How could anyone have expected anything else?

Hanley! wrote:Yeah, that Undertaker and Triple H wrestled for far too long and had a dull, plodding, overbooked match is probably the least surprising wrestling story of the year so far. How could anyone have expected anything else?

You forget the fact that they main evented, while Joe and AJ were stuck in the first half of the card.

AJ/Joe in the undercard is not surprising at all either considering the colossal promotion Triple H vs Undertaker got. Seems like they forced half the roster + retired legends to hype that match. It was practically the only match that had any build for this show other than AJ/Joe. Plus, Styles' title defenses have taken a back seat on every PPV this year that wasn't Smackdown exclusive. Remember that they had a pointless Reigns vs Joe match main event Backlash over AJ/Shinsuke for the WWE title. But at this rate that's becoming a different topic.

The booking for Undertaker in recent years has been bizarre. Roman Reigns vs Undertaker in the main event of Wrestlemania 33 was not a good thing in hindsight, but it made some sense at the time if you assumed that Taker retires at the end of that match and Roman uses the victory to assert that "this is his yard now" and become the biggest heel in the business. But neither of those things happened. One week later, Roman is back to being the same not-clicking-with-the-crowd babyface. One year later, Undertaker is in a Wrestlemania match with John Cena...

Which winds up being a 3 minute squash. That was kind of disappointing to me, but it made some sense at the time if you assume that Taker can't work a full match and the purpose of the whole program is for him to go out on a much higher note than he did the previous year against Roman. (And he did). But one month later, Taker is back and wrestling Rusev in a 20-minute casket match. A few months after that he's cutting promos on Raw and working a full program with Triple H that culminates in a 30 minute match (Messiah was not exaggerating, Wikipedia clocks it at 27:35). Yet Cena/Taker, which was something fresher and much more anticipated by fans, only gets 3 minutes and a shitty buildup? Why?

At this point it's safe to say that what fans want most from Undertaker is for him to just retire. That's what WWE should be building towards. And they can do a slow burn to it if they want, as long as they make it clear that's is the story he is in. But it doesn't seem like there's any direction for the character anymore. Instead of hints of retirement, we're getting these random, forgettable matches that would have been much better 10 years ago. I guess maybe the Saudi money is just too much to turn down. Or the guy feels like he's in great shape and can go, I don't know. In my opinion the only man that can carry Undertaker to a good 15+ minute match now is AJ Styles. "The Phenom vs The Phenomenal One".

All reports indicate that Shawn Michaels is coming out of retirement next month in Arabia to tag with Triple H against Taker and Kane. I guess money is all that matters.

All these recent dream matches are weird, because it seems like people think it's cool to see all these names together on a billboard or something, but nobody seems to be under the delusion that the matches themselves will be any good. Is anyone excited about the actual match between DX and Undertaker & Kane?

In a couple of years, we'll all remember that Michaels broke his retirement promise, but the match he came back for will be completely forgotten.

I just watched the match for the first time and I didn't think it was bad, though I certainly see why lots of people disagree. It was possibly the most overbooked singles match I've ever seen.

Tons of interference from Michaels and Kane throughout that began like 5 minutes into the match. It did keep things rolling though and prevented the match from getting boring, but it was hilarious how much interference there was. I could never figure out if the story was supposed to be Taker and Triple H having respect for one another, or both teams trying everything to have their side come out on top. Because I swear it was constantly bouncing between those two stories. Triple H was even fake crying at the end and the commentary team was selling the notion that a heavy weight had been lifted off his shoulders and he had "finally settled the score between himself and Taker", even though he only beat Taker through interference and a sledgehammer. Taker punching the first ref was the most random thing ever. I don't even remember how the second ref got taken out. A weird match.

If you look at it as a mindless attitude era style brawl that won't by followed up going forward, it was fun. Unfortunately, Michael Cole kept hammering home the idea that this is the END of the feud and we will never see these guys go at it again. That's going to play real well next month in Arabia, lol. We basically got that tag match already. I don't see how they can top what they did and Michaels supposedly coming out of retirement has soured me on the match already. He looks like shit. The bald look doesn't do it for me. Out of those four guys Triple H was the only one who looked like he should have more matches in the future.

KaiserGlider wrote:At this point it's safe to say that what fans want most from Undertaker is for him to just retire.

I reached this point about 6 years ago. I can't remember the last time I was excited about an Undertaker match. It may have been WrestleMania 24 vs Edge. I was interested in the WrestleMania 26 match vs Shawn Michaels only because it looked like Shawn would retire. I wasn't bothered about the Undertaker's involvement.

It's painful to watch Undertaker matches now and has been for several years. He has absolutely nothing left in the tank and seems to get worse every time he has a match. It's just unbearable.

Sadly, it seems he doesn't realise this himself and I don't think anyone has the courage to tell him, probably as they'd get their walking papers pretty soon after.

KaiserGlider wrote:Out of those four guys Triple H was the only one who looked like he should have more matches in the future.

And if he does continue having matches with wrestlers who can still perform, even those matches shouldn't be 30 minutes long. I don't know why he insists on having excruciating 30 minute matches as opposed to good 12 minute matches ... I guess it's just to prove that he can. Just as he used to convince himself that he could drag terrible wrestlers like Vladamir Koslov to good pay per view main events, and would then go out and bomb in front of everyone. The man has an ego that he never actually earned.

The Legend wrote:There's one match that I want HBK to come out of retirement for and we won't ever get it. HBK vs Daniel Bryan, that's it. That's one match I want to see HBK in.

That's more fun as a dream match conversation than it would be in reality. Michaels is old, he hasn't wrestled in eight years, he can't be expected to work a top quality singles match without a bunch of smoke and mirrors. And I don't believe WWE and Michaels would agree on a schedule for him that would help build a compelling story to make up for any shortcomings in the ring. And even if they did, I don't trust WWE to tell that story. I would have liked to see the match too at one point, but it would probably be a disappointment at this stage.

For me, there are no dream matches left for Michaels, Undertaker, Kane or even Triple H. Their time should be up when it comes to headline matches. It's not even that they're old, it's that they haven't been delivering at a top level in too many years.